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<< Our Photo Pages >> Ur of the Chaldees - Ancient Village or Settlement in Iraq

Submitted by AlexHunger on Saturday, 12 January 2013  Page Views: 24234

Multi-periodSite Name: Ur of the Chaldees Alternative Name: Ur
Country: Iraq
NOTE: This site is 6.991 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Nasiriyah  Nearest Village: Tell el-Mukayyar
Latitude: 30.962500N  Longitude: 46.103000E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4
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ELindey visited on 6th Jun 2007 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 1 A guesstimate on the date. A once in a lifetime experience.

DrewParsons have visited here

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by h_fenton : Ram in a Thicket Ram in a Thicket is one of a pair of figures excavated in the Royal Cemetery at Ur and date from about 2600-2400 BCE, these were found in the grave known as the 'Great Death Pit'. This figure is in the British Museum in London; the other figure is in University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. The figure is better described as a goat and is stood trying to eat the... (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Settlement in Iraq. Remains of early Sumerian city and royal cemetery. The mud brick Great Ziggurat, dating to the Middle Bronze Age (2100 BC), is the most notable structure on the site.

It was rebuilt in the 600's BC, and a partial reconstruction was performed in the 1980's.

A modern airbase was built near the site in the 1970's by President Saddam Hussein. The airbase was heavily damaged in the 1991 Gulf War and the Great Ziggurat was also damaged by bullet holes. During the 2nd Gulf War, Ur was surrounded by a perimeter that also included the airbase, which was completely reconstructed by US and other collation forces. In May 2009, the entire ancient site, was turned back over to the Iraqi government. Very limited public tourism at Ur started in 2010.

Note: Fertility and abundance are important themes of ancient Mesopotamian texts and images. See latest comment.
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Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by durhamnature : Old plan of the city, from "Babylonian Expedition...." via archive.org Site in Iraq (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by DrewParsons : Site in Iraq: The Ram in a Thicket now at the British Museum and photographed there in September 2008. One of the absolute delights of Iraq's ancient treasures. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by DrewParsons : Site in Iraq: The Standard of Ur now at the British Museum where I photographed it in September 2008. I visited Ur in October 1963 - not much to see at that time and as Iraq was then under Martial Law we had some trouble travelling around. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by durhamnature : Old drawing, from "Babylonian Expedition...." via archive.org Site in Iraq (Vote or comment on this photo)

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by durhamnature : Old photo, from "Bismya..." via archive.org Site in Iraq

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by durhamnature : Plan of the site from "History of Egypt.." via archive.org Site in Iraq

Ur of the Chaldees
Ur of the Chaldees submitted by durhamnature : Early plan of the site, from "Five Great Monarchies..." via archive.org Site in Iraq

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"Ur of the Chaldees" | Login/Create an Account | 17 News and Comments
  
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Tom Scott vs Dr Irving Finkel: The Royal Game of Ur by Andy B on Saturday, 15 July 2017
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For International Tabletop Day 2017, British Museum curator Irving Finkel challenged YouTuber Tom Scott to a round of the oldest playable board game in the world – The Royal Game of Ur – a game Irving discovered and deciphered the rules to himself. Watch the battle here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I

and find out how Irving Finkel discovered and deciphered the rules to the Royal Game of Ur here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjznvH54Cw
[ Reply to This ]

Conservation and Observation: more on a copper alloy cauldron from Ur by Andy B on Saturday, 15 July 2017
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Hazel Gardiner is working on the Ur digitisation project, continuing the work started in the 1920s and 1930s by archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley. In this blog Hazel Gardiner describes using X-radiography and analysis to unearth the mysteries of a third millennium BC copper-alloy cauldron.
Hazel Gardiner, Project Conservator, Ur 20 February 2017

This post continues the investigation of a copper-alloy cauldron, excavated at Ur (located in present-day Iraq) in the 1920s or 1930s by the archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley. Those of you who read the previous blog post on the cauldron will remember that the cauldron, initially a sorry sight, yielded a surprising amount of information, even allowing a speculative suggestion about its provenance.

The blog concluded with the suggestion that more information could be gained through further study, X-radiography and analysis.
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/corroded-ruin-or-hidden-treasure-a-third-millennium-bc-copper-alloy-cauldron-from-ur/
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The Sky from the High Terrace: Study on the Orientation of the Ziqqurat of Ur by Andy B on Friday, 20 January 2017
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D. Nadali, A. Polcaro, The Sky from the High Terrace: Study on the Orientation of the Ziqqurat in Ancient Mesopotamia, in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 16/4, 2016, pp. 103-108.
Andrea Polcaro, Davide Nadali

The ziqqurat is the symbol of the Mesopotamian sacred architecture in the western thought. This monument, standardized at the end of the III millennium BC by the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, has changed during the history of Mesopotamia its shape and architecture, but remained till the end of the Neo-Babylonian Period in the I millennium BC the highest structure of the city. The ziqqurat is the only monument visible over the settlements wall with a strong visual impact around the urban and the countryside landscape.

Despite its simple structural function, a high mud brick platform to sustain an upper temple, the ziqqurat appears in the Mesopotamian art and literature as a structure of primary importance, a connection between the earth, domain of the god Enlil, with the sky, domain of the god Anu. The ideological function to connect the earth and the sky was related also with the rituals performed in the high temples built above these monuments , usually linked with important seasonal royal rituals. The paper will analyze this particular aspect of ziqqurat, looking also to their orientations and to the changing in the relationship between these monuments and the urban landscape through the centuries.

https://www.academia.edu/30676653/ (free registration required)
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Re: Ur of the ChaldeesSymbols of Fertility and Abundance in the Royal Cemetery at Ur by bat400 on Sunday, 27 October 2013
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A paper from the American Journal of Archaeology

The goddess Inanna and her consort Dumuzi personify these ideas in texts of the second millennium B.C.E. Excavated by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, the Royal Cemetery at Ur dates to the mid third millennium B.C.E. Among the tombs, that of Queen Puabi yielded many ornaments of gold, carnelian, and lapis. Some of the pendants realistically depict identifiable animals.

Others are more stylized depictions of clusters of apples, dates, and date inflorescences. Apples and dates are both associated with the goddess Inanna, who is associated with love and fertility. Twisted wire pendants in the same group of objects are not so readily identified. I propose here that the twisted wire pendants in the Puabi assemblage may literally represent rope, symbolically reference sheep, and narratively evoke the flocks of the shepherd Dumuzi. Pairing symbols of Inanna and Dumuzi evokes life in a place of death.

This article considers and rejects the following identifications for the wire pendants: stylized palmette, pinnate leaf, grape (and implicitly any other fruit cluster), water, road, canal, and snake.

Thanks to coldrum for the link. Source: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com
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Re: Ur of the Chaldees by enjaytom on Sunday, 20 January 2013
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According to my world-wide research there was an earthquake in the Dead Sea area about 2250 BC. The atmospheric records indicate very high spikes in the atmospheric record given by the Arctic ice cores of ammonia and sulphur dioxide molecules. These are taken to have been sourced from a prolonged crude oil and natural gas conflagration over a few decades that resulted in a world wide blanket of the Sun, cold, drought, starvation. Empires collapsed in Europe, China, India, the Americas. There was cannibalism in Sudan and the Nile delta. The Nile pretty well dried up. Indian rivers eventually changed course when the climate normalised.
I can go on for 25,000 words giving detailed support.
Think for a moment -- there are enormous reserves of oil and gas in the Gulf states. Comparable reservoirs are being exploited in the western Sahara. There is only a mere trickle in Israel, Jordan etc.
Yet a virtually continuous deep sub-strata of limestone reservoir exists from Kirkuk to Algeria with a big dry gap in the middle.
So the Chaldean civilisation died of starvation, so did their language. Q.E.D.
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    Re: Ur of the Chaldees by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 19 February 2013
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    "Empires collapsed in [...] the Americas" - which empires would they be?
    [ Reply to This ]
    2250 BC Empires in the Americas? by bat400 on Tuesday, 19 February 2013
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    Please don't put all 25000 words here....try a Forum thread instead.
    [ Reply to This ]

Drought May Have Killed Sumerian Language by davidmorgan on Thursday, 03 January 2013
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A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says.

Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues. But several pieces of archaeological and geological evidence tie the gradual decline of the Sumerian civilization to a drought.

The findings, which were presented Monday (Dec. 3) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, show how vulnerable human society may be to climate change, including human-caused change.

"This was not a single summer or winter, this was 200 to 300 years of drought," said Matt Konfirst, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center.

Beginning about 3500 B.C., the Sumerian culture flourished in ancient Mesopotamia, which was located in present-day Iraq. Ancient Sumerians invented cuneiform writing, built the world's first wheel and arch, and wrote the first epic poem, "Gilgamesh."

But after 200 to 300 years of upheaval, the Sumerian culture disappeared around 4,000 years ago, and the Sumerian language went extinct soon after that.

Konfirst wanted to see if a drought that spanned about 200 years may have caused the decline. Several geological records point to a long period of drier weather in the Middle East around 4,200 years ago, Konfirst said. The Red Sea and the Dead Sea had increased evaporation; water levels dropped at Lake Van in Turkey, and cores from marine sediments around that period indicate increased dust in the environment.

"As we go into the 4,200-year-ago climate anomaly, we actually see that estimated rainfall decreases substantially in this region and the number of sites that are populated at this time period reduce substantially," he said.

Around the same time, 74 percent of the ancient Mesopotamian settlements were abandoned, according to a 2006 study of an archaeological site called Tell Leilan in Syria. The populated area also shrank by 93 percent, he said.

"People still live in this region. It's not that the collapse of a civilization means that an area is completely abandoned," he said. "But that there's a sharp change in the population."

During the great drought, two waves of marauding nomads descended upon the region, sacking the capital city of Ur. After around 2000 B.C., ancient Sumerian gradually died off as a spoken language in the region. For the next 2,000 years, the tongue lingered on as a dead written language, similar to Latin in the Middle Ages, but has been completely extinct since then, Konfirst said.

The coincidence of the social upheaval, depopulation in the area and the geologic record of drought suggests climate change might have played a role in the loss of the Sumerian language, Konfirst said.

The findings also suggest that modern-day civilizations may be vulnerable to climate change, he said.
http://www.livescience.com/25221-drought-killed-sumerian-language.html

Submitted by coldrum.
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    Re: Drought May Have Killed Sumerian Language by enjaytom on Sunday, 20 January 2013
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    Coldrum -- the root cause of the cold dry spell and drought was not spelled out in the December third American Geophysical Union paper. I will willingly respond to emails requesting chapter and verse on WHY the dry years actually happened. I have the answers.
    Just to whet your appetite, have you ever wondered why relatively little was built in Britain after Stonehenge 2300 BC. Same reason in my opinion.
    NH4 and SO4 were the answers.
    [ Reply to This ]

U.S. archaeologists unearth Iraq's ruins at Tell Sakhariya by bat400 on Wednesday, 27 June 2012
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Not Ur, but a nearby, smaller, site, Tell Sakhariya, four miles from Ur.

Vanished cities abound in Iraq —Babylon, Nineveh and Ur just for starters. War and international sanctions closed these locations off to the world and to scholars. The ruins of ancient Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, have mostly seen visits from looters for the last two decades.

But that may be changing. A U.S. archaeology team that was one of the first to visit Iraq in more than two decades, has just returned from a dig there.

"There is so much gloom and doom in news from Iraq, this is a really hopeful moment," says archaeologist Elizabeth Stone of Stony Brook (N.Y) University. "Iraq, Mesopotamia, is so rich in archaeological sites. It was wonderful to be back."

Stone has been there before, most notably on a helicopter tour of sites looted in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War. From the looting tour and satellite photos looking across Iraq, Stone and colleagues determined that robbers dug the equivalent of 3,700 acres of holes in archaeological sites across a region filled with ancient history.

"Things are better now and there was real interest among Iraqi scholars and officials in resuming archaeological work there," Stone says. Instead of a city, they hoped to find an ancient village at a site called Tell Sakhariya, near the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah, and about four miles from the ancient ruins of Ur.

At the Tell Sakhariya site, the team dug trenches to find the history of the site, which satellite photos had suggested was a small place. "We have lots of cities, but not a lot of villages," Stone says. "And not a lot of time, so we needed to start small."

For her National Geographic Society-funded team, "small" was a square football-field sized mound, or tell, the giveaway for an ancient settlement site built of crumbled brick and pottery. Instead of a village, though, the digging at first revealed an encampment for herders who flourished in the region after 1800 B.C., when a dynasty of kings fell with nearby Ur. Cow and fish bones were found in hearths there, left just like marsh herders today leave them in the region.

Satellite images suggested a "fortress" remained even lower down, based on what looked like the outline of walls. The archaeologists dug five test pits across what they thought were walls and kitchens. But it turned out the "fortress" walls were just salt-soaked depressions, fooling the researchers.

"Instead we found burials," of what seem like infants, Stone says, and the clay edges of a platform more than 80 yards across.

What else did they find? Among the discoveries were parts of inscriptions on 10 clay bricks and markers found at the platform level. They suggest a ceremonial platform built by the kings of Ur around 2000 B.C. At the time, Ur was one of the largest cities of the world, with tens of thousands of citizens, great record-keepers of ancient days who marked cuneiform symbols in mud bricks to record their business dealings. Which is why we know so much about them, now.

"It's very tentative, but the site may be Ga'esh, a place where Ur's kings went every year for a festival renewing their rulership," Stone says. The claim has competition from an Italian team now investigating another nearby site in the region, she adds.

"These people kept private records, still in their houses," she says. "And you look under the floors, and there are burials. It is the complete package for archaeology." After waiting 20 years to return, Stone says, "We're very hopeful we can return again."

Thanks to coldrum : For more, read at http://www.usatoday.com.
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Scientists find 4500-year old temple in Ur in Iraq by Andy B on Thursday, 01 March 2012
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By Shaymaa Adel
Azzaman, February 23, 2012

Iraqi and foreign archaeologists have uncovered a temple at the Sumerian city of Ur, which dates back to about 2500 B.C., the head of the Antiquities Department says.

So far the scientists have uncovered one of the walls of the temple along with numerous graves from the same period, said Hussein Rashid.

Ur is one of ancient Iraq’s most fascinating cities. It has given the world priceless treasures from the Sumerian civilization that flourished in southern Iraq.

The Sumerians, whose ethnic and linguistic stock is still a mystery, invented writing and established a civil system of government in southern Iraq more than 5000 years ago.

“An Italian excavation team in coordination with their Iraqi counterparts have uncovered the wall of a temple dating to 2500 B.C. at Tel Abu Tabeer in the ancient city of Ur,” said Rashid.

Rashid said there were three foreign excavation teams currently working in Iraq. It is the first team of foreign archaeologists to be working in the country for more than two decades. An American team was to arrive in Iraq to excavate ancient mounds in the southern city of Nasiriya, the capital of Dhi Qar Province where the richest and most ancient Mesopotamian ruins are found.

The Italian team in Ur is closely cooperating with scientist at Dhi Qar University. Rashid said Italian scientists will be lecturing on Iraq’s ancient civilizations and languages in English.

More at
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news/2012-02-23/kurd.htm
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Iraq's ancient Ur treasures 'in danger' by davidmorgan on Friday, 08 July 2011
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Standing before the imposing ziggurat which was once part of a temple complex at the Sumerian capital of Ur, Iraqi archaeologist Abdelamir Hamdani worried about the natural elements that are eating away at one of the wonders of Mesopotamia.

"Is there anybody thinking about preserving these monuments?" asked the doctoral student from New York's Stony Brook University who is one of the leaders of a nascent project to conserve the few unearthed remains of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of civilisation.

The buried treasures of Ur still beckon foreign archaeologists who have begun cautiously returning to Iraq, but experts like Hamdani say that preserving the sites is more urgent than digging for more.

Ur, the Biblical birthplace of Abraham, and which more than 4,000 years ago was the capital of a prosperous empire ruling over Mesopotamia, is believed to have so far relinquished only a fraction of its buried antiquities.

"Everybody likes the idea of excavations. People say we have to find ancient treasures," said Hamdani, who is involved in a joint project between Baghdad and a US non-governmental organisation to map and restore the site.

"There are treasures right under our feet," said Hamdani, referring to some of the riches that during the last large excavations decades ago were pulled out of the sand and carted off to museums in Iraq and abroad.

"But why cram these treasures into museums if the (unearthed) monuments are not preserved?" he asked rhetorically.

There have been no major excavations at Ur, which lies on the outskirts of the modern city of Nasiriyah about 300 kilometres (185 miles) south of Baghdad, since digs funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania in the 1920s and 1930s. The site has so far relinquished only about 10 percent of its riches, experts say.

British archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley found some of the greatest treasures of antiquity at Ur, including a golden dagger encrusted with lapis lazuli, an intricately carved golden statue of a ram caught in a thicket, a lyre decorated with a bull's head and the gold headdress of a Sumerian queen.

But for the past half-century nothing has been done to preserve the sites that yielded those finds.

Ur of the Chaldees, as it is mentioned in the Bible, was one of the great urban centres of the Sumerian civilisation of southern Iraq and remained an important city until its conquest by Alexander the Great a few centuries before Christ.

It is thought to have reached its apogee under King Ur-Nammu, who is believed to have ruled between 2112 and 2095 BC, and his successors.

The Sumerian capital boasted paved roads, tree-lined avenues, schools, poets, scribes, and stunning works of art and architecture of the kind discovered by Woolley and his team.

But war and strife over the past 30 years closed Ur to foreign archaeologists, and since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein Baghdad's struggling government has had bigger priorities than funding large-scale digs in a country with more than 12,000 documented archaeological sites.

Those who have come, however, have largely chosen to focus on the autonomous and relatively safe Kurdistan region in the north for excavations.

They have mostly avoided Ur and other sites in the rest of the country as safety remains a key issue, even though violence levels are lower than their peak in 2006 and 2007.

"Foreigners are watching but few would go to Baghdad," said French archaeologist Christine Kepinski, a research director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

"We are more likely to go to Kurdistan," she said by electronic mail, noting that that is where teams from the Czech Republic, Italy, Britain, Greece, France, Germany and the Netherlands had been going since 2006.

But some, like Italian philologist

Read the rest of this post...
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Unearthing the splendour of Ur in Iraq by bat400 on Saturday, 27 February 2010
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Submitted by coldrum ---

The buried antiquities of Ur could one day outshine those of ancient Egypt, archaeologists at a large-scale excavation in Iraq believe. With the country ravaged by war and strife since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Baghdad's struggling government has had greater priorities than funding large-scale digs at Ur - the birth place of Abraham and one of the cradles of civilisation - where only small teams have been working since 2005.

"When the (large-scale) excavations restart, tons of antiquities will see the light of day, filling entire museum wings," enthused Dhaif Moussin, who is in charge of protecting a site that has been prone to looting.

"This site will become perhaps more important than Giza," he added.

That may not be just an idle boast.

In the early 1900s a British archaeologist, Charles Leonard Woolley, made some stunning finds when he unearthed 16 tombs of Ur's elite. Inside he found some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, including a golden dagger encrusted with lapis lazuli, an intricately carved golden statue of a ram caught in a thicket, a lyre decorated with a bull's head and the gold headdress of a Sumerian queen.

Those treasures have been compared to the riches from the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king, Tutankhamun, but they excite archaeologists even more because the graves at Ur are more than 1,000 years older.
Archaeologically, the most astonishing find of Ur has been a remarkably well-preserved stepped platform, or ziggurat, which dates back to the third millennium BC, when it was part of a temple complex that served as the administrative centre of the Sumerian capital.

"Some archaeologists estimate it will take more than 30 years to dig out the entire city," said Moussin, surveying the site.

"It is certain that much more material remains to be discovered," said Steve Tinney, professor of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania which, together with the British Museum, sponsored Woolley's excavations between 1922 and 1934.

Ur is thought to have reached its apogee under King Ur-Nammu, an accomplished warrior and founder of Sumer's third dynasty, who is believed to have lived between 2112 and 2095 BC.
During his rule, the kingdom was governed by a real administration and code of laws. Sumerian script, called cuneiform, is the earliest known writing system in the world.

Tinney said he hoped for the discovery of texts that would shed light on the culture and polytheistic religion of the Sumerians. "We do not have literature on Ur-Nammu and his successors, the Sumerians or their rituals," said Tinney.

The site would be unequalled in the world if it proves to be the birthplace of Abraham, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, said Moussin. Woolley wanted to prove that Abraham had lived in Ur, after discovering Abraham's name on a brick unearthed there.

"Much remains to be done, and an endeavour must be authorised together with the central government if Iraq wants to benefit from its enormous potential as a Mecca of tourism," said Anna Prouse, an Italian diplomat in charge of a regional rebuilding team in the Iraqi province of Dhi Qar.

For more, see telegraph.co.uk.
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Re: Iraqi archaeologists find ancient Sumerian settlement by coldrum on Wednesday, 13 January 2010
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Iraqi archaeologists said on Friday they have discovered a 2,000-year-old Sumerian settlement in southern Iraq, yielding a bounty of historical artefacts.

The site, in the southern province of Dhi Qar, is in the desert near ancient Ur, the biblical birthplace of Abraham.

"There are walls and cornerstones carrying Sumerian writings, dating back to the era of the third Sumerian dynasty," said Abdul Amir al-Hamdani, head of the provincial government's archaeology department.

Hamdani said the artefacts, which included sickles and knives, largely dated back to around 2000 BC, during the rule of King Amarsin, the third king of the third Sumerian dynasty.

He said the site "changes our perceptions about the Sumerian settlements, because they used to be near water or rivers, and this one is located in the desert."

The newly discovered site lies around 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Nasiriyah, the capital of Dhi Qar, and is close to the ancient city of Ur.

Ur of the Chaldees was one of the great urban centres of the Sumerian civilisation of southern Iraq, and remained an important city until its conquest by Alexander the Great three centuries before Christ.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100108-iraqi-archaeologists-find-ancient-sumerian-settlement
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Re: At Ur, ritual deaths messier than thought by coldrum on Monday, 04 January 2010
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From Ur's Royal Tombs

C. Leonard Woolley's first excavations at Ur, in southern Iraq, coincided with Howard Carter's 1922 discovery, in Egypt, of King Tutankhamen's tomb. This grand-scale archaeology captured the popular imagination: Its practitioners were hailed as heroes, their theories were trumpeted in the mass media, and their finds influenced fashion.
[ur] Penn Museum

The British-born Woolley's expedition involved 12 seasons of digging with hundreds of workers, until the Depression closed the funding tap in 1934. Its focus was the Royal Cemetery, whose tombs were filled with exquisitely crafted artifacts from Mesopotamia's Early Dynastic period, about 4,500 years ago. The venture would inspire Agatha Christie's 1936 mystery "Murder in Mesopotamia," in which expedition members, thinly disguised, pop up as characters.

Six years earlier, Christie had married Woolley's field assistant, M.E.L. Mallowan, who said of his boss: "Woolley's observations missed nothing, and his imagination grasped everything." The comment is highlighted in a new long-term exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, "Iraq's Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur's Royal Cemetery." But it has assumed an ironic cast. While Woolley was careful and conscientious, the show says, he was not quite the paragon Mallowan describes, and many of his conclusions were wrong.

"He told good stories," says Richard L. Zettler, the exhibition's co-curator and associate curator-in-charge of the museum's Near East section. "And when he made stories up, he stuck with them. And that occasionally blinded him to evidence that could be contradictory."

"Iraq's Ancient Past" celebrates the return of the Ur artifacts to the Penn Museum after a national tour. But it also aims to place these mostly familiar works—the massive lyre with its gold and lapis lazuli-bearded bull's head, the "Ram Caught in the Thicket" statuette, the astonishing beaded jewelry and gold headdress of Queen Puabi—in an updated archaeological context.
'Iraq's Ancient Past'

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

"What we attempted to show is that these . . . are not just dusty artifacts sitting in a curio-cabinet museum," Mr. Zettler says. "These are artifacts that still have plenty to say to us. If we pose the right questions, we have the right methodologies, the right technologies, we can make these objects speak again."

Crammed into a single large gallery, the Penn Museum show—filled with delicate cylinder seals and alabaster pots, and glittering strings of gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli beads—is at once frustratingly old-fashioned and deliberately retro in its design. Musical selections from the expedition's record collection play in the background. The texts are well-written but long and somewhat dense. They are supplemented by archival and contemporary images of the site and computer terminals displaying the exhibition's Web site and other Web resources and offering visitors a chance to "live blog" about the show.

The exhibition's most startling contention is that the attendants buried in the so-called Great Death Pit and other royal tombs did not voluntarily imbibe poison to join their sovereign in the underworld, as Woolley had hypothesized. Recent CT scans of two skulls, belonging to a gold-helmeted soldier and a female attendant, indicate that the cause of death was blunt-force trauma and the murder instrument was likely a pick, Mr. Zettler says.

Not addressed in the show is whether such practices were kept secret, who the murderers were, and how so many—there were 74 skeletons in the Great Death Pit—could have been lured to their deaths. "They may have drugged them all, and then killed them," says Mr. Zettler. "It's a puzzle."

The suicide theory was not Woolley's only misstep. Ever the romantic, he suggested that Queen Puabi chose the locatio

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Re: At Ur, ritual deaths messier than thought by Aluta on Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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More about that here and here.
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At Ur, ritual deaths messier than thought by bat400 on Wednesday, 09 December 2009
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Submitted by coldrum ---

A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say.

Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps, was driven into their heads.

Archaeologists at the University of Pennsylvania reached that conclusion after conducting the first CT scans of two skulls from the 4,500-year-old cemetery. The cemetery, with 16 tombs grand in construction and rich in gold and jewels, was discovered in the 1920s. A sensation in 20th-century archaeology, it revealed the splendor at the height of the Mesopotamian civilization.

The recovery of about 2,000 burials attested to the practice of human sacrifice on a large scale. At or even before the demise of a king or queen, members of the court — handmaidens, warriors and others — were put to death. Their bodies were usually arranged neatly, the women in elaborate headdress, the warriors with weapons at their side.

A new exhibition of Ur artifacts opened Sunday at Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Researchers took CT scans of skull bones and applied forensic skills to arrive at the probable cause of death.

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